Sapphire R7 260X OC 1GB Graphics Card Review

Overclocking & Overclocked Performance

The overclocking ability of a graphics card is an important buying consideration irrespective of whether the graphics card is low end or enthusiast level. I’m sure everyone will agree that the more extra performance from overclocking – the better. In our overclocking we push each graphics card to its maximum stable core and memory frequencies. Typically we also raise the power limit to the maximum and where possible raise the voltages if this results in higher overclocks being achieved. We always aim for “24/7” stable overclocks that DO NOT result in potential heat on longevity issues so if we do raise the voltage it is still kept within safe parameters. The latest beta version of MSI’s Afterburner software is the overclocking utility of choice: this is because MSI Afterburner Beta versions typically allows you to circumvent overclocking restrictions – particularly those set by AMD.

Overclocking didn’t match that we achieved with other R7 260Xs: the GPU Core and the memory was lower than with other cards. For reference here are the overclocked results we have achieved with all R7 260Xs

• Sapphire R7 260X OC 1GB GDDR5 – 1185MHz Core and 1590MHz Memory (Elpida)
• AMD R7 260X 2GB GDDR5 – 1245MHz Core and 1800MHz memory (Hynix)
• HIS R7 260X OC 2GB GDDR5 – 1250MHz Core and 1925MHz memory (Hynix)

The main let down is the use of Elpida memory which results in limited overclocking headroom, the fact only 1GB is present also means some games become VRAM limited. The GPU overclock was still decent considering the R7 260X is already an “overclocked HD 7790”, on another day you might be able to overclock higher than 1200MHz if you got a better chip but sadly we didn’t.

Overclocked Performance